WITH the accession of the
haughty and imperious Henry VIII. to the English throne in 1509 the
friendly relations which had existed between Scotland and England since
the marriage of James IV. and Margaret Tudor soon became strained. The
state of affairs on the Continent was partly to blame for this. There Pope
Julius II. had formed the Holy League with Venice, Spain, the Emperor
Maximilian, and Henry VIII. against France. James could hardly with honour
to himself remain neutral when the ancient ally of Scotland was thus being
attacked on all sides, more especially as he well knew—and the events of
history were to justify his belief---—that,
if Henry succeeded in France, Scotland would be the next to suffer from
his ambition.

And besides, James himself
had several causes of quarrel with Henry, only one of which concerns our
story of Leith. This was the attack by the Howards on Andrew Barton and
his two ships in time of peace. It was just at this time that De la Motte,
the French ambassador, arrived with his queen’s appeal for help.
bringing with him into Leith seven English ships captured at sea. Three
months later Robert Barton brought in thirteen more. War inevitably
followed. James determined to assist France by leading an army across the
Border and sending his now powerful fleet to cooperate with that of France
against England in the Channel.

On the outbreak of war the
command of the fleet, as we have seen, was not given to a real seaman like
Sir Andrew Wood or Robert Barton, but to the Earl of Arran, for in feudal
times the high officers of State were chosen from among the great nobles.
Robert Barton sailed under Arran as captain of the Lion, while his
brother John went as commander of the Margaret, but died on the
voyage before the fleet reached France. The ships of the fleet were
completely equipped in every way, their complement of men including
chaplains and surgeons just as those of warships do to-day.

We can imagine the stir and
excitement in Leith when the ships sailed away, since all the sailormen and
gunners of Leith and Newhaven were aboard. So was King James, for to show
his interest in the expedition he had resolved to sail in the Great
Michael as far as the May Island. The children and the womenfolk, the
old and the feeble, crowded the pier and the beach to watch the fleet as
it sailed away, little dreaming that as the ships, their pride and their
boast, one after another, disappeared beyond the horizon they had seen the
most of them for the last time. On the king’s return to Leith, Arran,
instead of steering direct for France, for some unaccountable reason went
North-about and arrived in France too late to have any influence on the
war. From this date the navy of James IV., built at so great a cost and
constructed almost entirely by the people of Leith and Newhaven,
disappears from history, and seems to have been sold out of the service,
for during the long and troubled minority of James V. little patriotism
was left in the land.

Meanwhile the great army of
James was gathering at the Standand Stane on the Burgh Muir, over which
the streets and villas of Morningside are now built. This "standand
stane" has been placed upon, the wall enclosing the grounds of
Morningside Parish Church, and is now known as the "Bore Stone."
James and his army were no more successful than the fleet, for at Flodden
they met with such disastrous defeat that the sorrow of it even yet echoes
mournfully in song and story. Local tradition records how nobly the
burgesses of Edinburgh fought and died around their king in the gloom of
that fatal September evening on Flodden Edge, and how great was the sorrow
the dark tidings of the disaster brought her.

But what of Leith?
"Tradition, legend, tune, and song" record the part towns like
Edinburgh, Selkirk, and Hawick played in this much-storied battle; but how
many Leithers, if asked, could tell what share their town took in the
Flodden campaign? And yet, when we turn to the accounts for the king’s
ships, the story of Leith’s part is at once revealed. The men of Leith
and Newhaven, as one might have guessed, were with the fleet; for their
country has never called when they have not heard. Their very names are
all set down, and run to hundreds; First on the list come the Bartons, of
whom there were no fewer than seven, followed by their relations the
Edmonstones and the Kers, who, with the Richardsons, lived in North Leith.

The tragic and untimely
death of James IV. at Flodden was nowhere more lamented than in Leith, for
in no part of the country had that gay and romantic monarch been better
known and more loved. His interest in his ships and dockyards had brought
him almost daily to the town, where he was a frequent and welcome visitor
at the homes of his more noted sea-captains, Sir Andrew Wood, the Bartons,
the Logans, Will Merrymouth, and Will Brownhill. Never again was any king
of Scotland to have such frequent and friendly association with Leith as
James IV. had had. Under his wise and peaceful rule the town had grown and
prospered, but its prominence in national affairs was not due to its size,
which was small, but to its harbour, then the most important in the
country, and to its sailormen, whose courage and daring were held in
wholesome dread wherever their flag was known.

The truth of the chronicler
Fordoun’s almost prophetic utterance, "Woe to the land when the
king is a child," was to be brought home to the people of Leith
during the long minority of James V. in a way never before experienced
even in unruly Scotland. The wayward Earl of Arran in the summer of 1513
returned with three ships of the fleet he had so leisurely led to France,
two of them being the Margaret and the James. The Great
Michael and the others were sold to the French king, and Leith saw
them no more. The Leith sailor-men on their return complained bitterly of
their treatment at the hands of the French, who, no doubt, felt keenly the
tardy arrival of Arran, for the war had gone against their king, Louis
XII.

Arran became Provost of
Edinburgh, and was at the same time head of the King’s Council. In a
dispute between the merchant burgesses of Edinburgh and the Leithers, led
by Robert Barton, about the sale of a cargo of timber brought by a Dutch
ship to the Shore, Arran, in an evil hour for himself, and to the towering
wrath of the Edinburgh burgesses, sided with the Leithers, who, to say
truth, had ignored any rights of the burgesses in the matter. The
Edinburgh merchants, however, soon found occasion
for revenge. In the great street fight between Arran and Angus and their
followers, known to fame as "Cleanse the Causeway," the burgesses
took the side of Angus, and Arran and his son only saved themselves by
mounting a pack-horse that had come into the city with coals, and riding
through the shallows of the Nor’ Loch for their lives.

It was impossible that trade could
flourish amid the lawlessness and consequent insecurity that ensued when
rulers in the State like Angus and Arran led the way in stirring up
turmoil and strife. It was decreed that no Hamilton or Douglas should
occupy the provost’s chair. Leith then, for the first and only time,
supplied the city with her chief magistrate in the person of Robert Logan
of Coatfield, who was granted 100 merks in addition to his ordinary fee,
that he might employ four armed men to carry halberds before him,
"because the warld is brukle (unsettled) and troublous."

It was now that Henry VIII. began a
policy of "frightfulness" against Scotland by raiding and
desolating the Lowland districts. These English raids were usually
preceded or accompanied by a naval force, which sometimes sailed up the
Forth, destroying the shipping and harassing the towns round the coast.
One of these naval raids now brings Leith into notice. On the first Sunday
of May 1521 seven English warships made their way up the Firth, and
attacked the Port when the people were about to set out for morning
church. They bombarded the town, doing little harm, for they were on a lee
and sandy shore and feared to venture too near, but thought that
"such another peal to matins and to mass had not been rung in Leith
these twenty years." Off Inchkeith, where they replenished their
empty water barrels, they learned from a captain whose ship they had captured that no vessels were then
in the Port, save a barque of Davy Falconer’s and a ship belonging to
Hob a Barton. The others were all at sea, which was just as well perhaps
for the English commander, for when Davy Falconer and young John Barton
joined ships they could give the English long odds and win in the end.

Thus with the turmoil within the realm from feudal
strife and English raids, and wars upon the sea, the shipping of Leith
declined and trade decayed. An unemployment "dole" had to be
paid to the clerk who gave the bailie’s "tikket" allowing
ships to set out on their voyage, and another was paid to the keeper of
the Over Tron at the Bowhead, where all goods imported into Leith were
weighed, for overseas trade had almost ceased. Save the Unicorn, we
hear of no more ships being built. The dockyards of the Port and Newhaven
became neglected, and finally fell into decay and ruin. Leith again had to
revert to her former custom of purchasing what ships she required from
Holland, and not till the beginning of the eighteenth century did the
building of the larger ships again become an industry in the town. Much of
her trade, as in older days, again fell into the hands of Dutch and
Flemish shipowners, whose freights were lower even than those of her own
shipmen.

In 1527 continental politics took a change.
Henry VIII. was now in league with France against the Emperor Charles V.,
and Scotland, as her ally, was included in the Peace. But war, both by
land and sea, soon broke out again, and on the sea Leith was seldom out of
the fray. Early in the following year five armed ships, with the king’s
knowledge we are told, set forth from Leith Haven.

The
capital
"H" shows that Newhaven is meant. It was
there that the largest vessels usually lay at this time.

The names of the ships are
not given, but those of some of the captains are, at whose sole expense
they were equipped. There were Will Clapperton, who lived on the Shore;
John Barton, who had all the fighting spirit of his more famous uncles,
Andrew and Robert; and John Ker, who was married to Barton’s sister
Agnes, and lived benorth the brig—that is, in North Leith. Evidently
they had some score to settle with the "auld enemy," and they
paid it with interest. For three months later they returned to Leith in
triumph with fifteen English prizes to recoup them for their outlay.
"Our Lord send amends of the false Scots," wrote the exasperated
English spy who had the unpleasant duty of sending this highly displeasing
news of the exploits of John Barton and his friends to his English
employers.

Certainly this English spy
had good cause to feel sore, for a similar capture of English ships had
been made the year before. "I would like to do the Scots some
displeasure," wrote the English Admiral of the Narrow Seas to Wolsey,
"for their cracks and high words." He was thinking of the Leith
sailormen when he wrote, for some proud words of John Barton had just been
reported to him by an English sea captain whom that bold Leith mariner had
relieved of both ship and cargo the day before, within the very seas
patrolled by the irate admiral’s ships. It almost seems as if Leith had
no need of shipbuilding yards in those stirring times.

Peace was at length
proclaimed, and Henry, having sent his nephew James the Order of the
Garter as a token of his goodwill, the latter thought he might safely
leave his kingdom for a time and venture overseas to France, where he was
engaged by treaty to marry a French princess. It was not considered
courtly etiquette for a king to go a-wooing in this way. James, no doubt,
inherited this impulsive side of his nature from his Tudor mother, who,
like her imperious brother Henry VIII., was constantly giving shocks to
her more sedately-minded subjects. Yet, as Leithers, we are pleased that
King James was no stickler for courtly convention, for his voyage in
search of a wife with a rich "tocher" to replenish his empty
treasury forms a pleasant and romantic episode in the almost unvarying
story of piracy and war that seems to form the staple of Leith’s history
during this period.

James did not set sail from
Leith as is so often stated, but the small fleet of seven ships did which
was to carry him and his brilliant retinue to France. The names of two
only of these ships are given—the Mary Willoughby, one of John
Barton’s captures from the English and the largest ship then belonging
to the Port, and the Morisat, whose name suggests that she was one
of the many captures by the Bartons from the Portingals. The fleet picked
up the king and his suite at Pittenweem, for they had all travelled
thither from his favourite seat of Falkland. In addition to their crews
the vessels carried five hundred soldiers, so that, in the event of attack
from English or other ships, the king might have a sufficient force with
which to oppose them.

In those days books were
few, and James, unlike his father, took no pleasure in them. Raleigh had
not yet introduced tobacco, indeed was not yet born, so, to relieve the
monotony of the voyage, whose length might vary from a few days to as many
weeks or even months, according to the wind, James took with him for his
own use two and a half barrels of sweetmeats and
a box of caramels. The storm-tossed fleet eventually reached Dieppe, to
the great alarm of the inhabitants of that quaint old port, for they took
the Scottish ships for some vengeful English squadron, until the red lion
of Scotland pierced with the French fleurs-de-lis, which seafaring Dieppe
knew so well, was seen at their masthead, when "thai war werie
rejoyssit of his coming."

The lady chosen for him not coming
up to James’s expectations, he fell in love with the beautiful
Madeleine, daughter of the French king, and she with him. The royal lovers
were married with all pomp and ceremony at Notre Dame, in Paris, in 1537.
James and his beautiful but delicate bride set sail from Dieppe with a
fleet of fourteen Scottish ships convoyed by eight French men-of-war, but
not before the English shore had been well reconnoitred to see if any
English ships were ready to dispute their passage, for this French match
must have been a sore trial to Henry VIII. At last, after a somewhat
stormy voyage, the fleet made the sheltered waters of the Forth, and came
to anchor off the harbour mouth at ten o’clock on Whitsunday evening.

Next morning Leith was all astir. In
the long twilight of the previous evening the townsfolk had watched the
fleet as it made its way up the Firth, and all had recognized the Mary
Willoughby as she proudly led the way, her tops and yards alive with
banners and streamers from mast to sea. When the queen stepped ashore she
knelt down in the fullness of her loving heart, and kissed "the
Scottis eard, and thanked God that her husband and she were cum saif
through the seas," little dreaming as she did so that ere six weeks
were to pass she would be laid to rest in Holyrood Abbey beneath the same
kindly Scottish earth.

Expectant crowds lined the
way as the king and his

young and happy
bride, followed by a brilliant train of lords and ladies, rode along the
Shore under a veritable canopy of streamers from the ships lining the quay
wall. The hearts of all, men, women, and children, were at once captivated
by the charm and sweetness of the fair and gentle Madeleine. But soon all
this joy was changed to sorrow, for the excitement of her arrival and the
sudden change from the genial and sunny climate of France to the cold east
winds and chilly haars for which Leith and Edinburgh in May and June are
notorious were too much for this fragile lily of France. To the
inexpressible grief of the whole nation the loving and affectionate
Madeleine died in the midst of her happiness a few weeks after her arrival
on the Shore of Leith.

James was not a widower long, for in
the following year he married Mary of Guise, whom he had much admired
while in France the year before. Like Queen Madeleine, Mary of Guise
voyaged to Scotland in John Barton’s ship, the Mary Willoughby, but,
as Leith was threatened with plague, she landed near Crail, where James
met her. The marriage took place next day in St. Andrews Cathedral. Though
Mary of Guise did not land at Leith she was destined ere long to form very
close associations with the town, where memorials of her are still to be
found. One of these, now in the Trinity House, is the model of a French
galley named La Belle Esperance, in which she is said to have
sailed to Scotland. Three galleons of France accompanied her on that
occasion, but only one, the Riall, which had also convoyed Queen
Madeleine, is named.

The marriage of James V. with Mary
of Guise was to prove a turning point in the history of Scotland and to
bring much woe to Leith. James, encouraged by his French wife, turned more
and more to France, while a
powerful section of the nobles, whose ranks were honey combed with
treachery, favoured closer relations with England. The result of these
diverging policies was the shameful rout of Solway Moss, the death of
James, and the poor defence against England in her savage wars against
Scotland during the early years of Mary Queen of Scots, when Leith more
than once was most cruelly ravaged by the "auld enemy." Peace
followed on the death of James, and a marriage was arranged between Henry’s
son, Edward, and the infant Queen of Scots, but the mischievous
interference of Henry spoiled all.

In his customary
high-handed way in dealing with Scotland Henry ordered the seizure of
several ships belonging to Leith and Edinburgh merchants and ship-owners.
They were on their way to France laden with fish, and relying on the
protection afforded by the peace had entered English ports under stress of
weather. Negotiations were begun with a view to having the ships and their
cargoes restored, but the English conditions were such that the patriotic
Edinburgh and Leith ship-owners and merchants boldly declared they would
rather lose their ships than become traitors to their country by agreeing
to them. The Scots thereupon repudiated the marriage treaty, and began to
establish closer relations with France.

Henry VIII. was furious at
what he called the "untrue dealing" of the Scots, and reverted
to the policy of "frightfulness" to bend them to his will. He
had gathered together a great fleet of ships for service against France.
He now ordered the veteran Earl of Hertford to employ these vessels in
conveying an expedition to Scotland by sea, so as to avoid any chance of
being intercepted and opposed on the Border.

Hertford’s instructions
were to burn Edinburgh, and so deface it as to leave a memory for ever of
the vengeance of God upon it; to sack Holyrood; to sack, burn, and destroy
Leith, and all the towns and villages round Edinburgh, "putting man,
woman, and child to the sword without exception where any resistance is
made." Such were Henry’s savage and barbarous instructions, and in
Hertford and his men, to whom mercy was unknown, he had fitting
instruments for carrying them out.

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